Old Sins Long Shadows by B.D. Hawkey

live. It was then that Mother discovered my father, who I had always thought the world of, who had called me “his princess”, had taken all of their savings and left us destitute. We moved into a one bedroom lodging house in the poorer part of town. It was all we could afford and my mother, much to her disgust, took in mending. I was sent out to work. At the age of thirteen there is little for a girl to do but go into service, particularly if there is not enough room at home.
    ‘ My mother blamed me for my father leaving. She said if my sisters had not died there would not have been the strain on the family. You see, it was me that caught scarlet fever first and brought it into the house. My friend had been ill with the fever and I wanted to visit her.  I wanted to give her my doll to comfort her. My mother forbade me but I visited her anyway. I was too young to understand the consequences of my actions. I caught the fever and gave it to my sisters. My mother has never forgiven me.
    ‘ So from the age of thirteen I have felt that I just don’t fit in, wherever I am. I’m too educated for one class, too poor for the other. It’s not a nice feeling, not fitting in. It’s lonely.’  She bit her lip, she had said too much. She hardly knew him yet she had just spilled her life story to him as if she’d known him all her life. She shouldn’t have said so much. She abruptly changed the topic. ‘I’m sorry for insulting you at the hall tonight.’
    ‘ I’ve been called worse, although you are the first to insult me to my face.’  She could well believe it. Only a fool would risk insulting Daniel Kellow to his face. She couldn’t help smiling. ‘That’s better,’ he said seeing her cheeks dimple in the moonlight.
    ‘ I don’t usually go around insulting people. I’m just not used to being manhandled.’
    ‘ I’m not sure I like my dancing being described as being manhandled,’ he teased.
    ‘ It was too forward. I didn’t know you. It was,’she struggled with the right words.
    ‘ Too intimate?’
    She wriggled uncomfortably, he wasn’t sure he wanted her to be doing that.
    ‘A woman likes to become acquainted first before such closeness.’ Janey was aware she was sounding a little pompous but she was only telling the truth as she saw it.
    ‘ I’ve had no complaints before,’ countered Daniel. She could well believe it.
    ‘ Then I must be different.’
    The sound of his laughter surprised her.
    ‘You certainly are.’ he replied.
    She tried again to explain, ‘A gentleman wouldn’t behave that way,’ she felt him change behind her and the air became tense.
    ‘ Gentlemen are not always what they seem.’
    ‘ I’m not explaining myself very well. Mr Brockenshaw, for example, he wouldn’t just lift a woman up in public.’
    ‘ It takes more than a title to make a man a gentleman.’ Daniel’s voice had once more become curt and she knew he had taken offence.
    She tried to explain again. ‘It’s about etiquette, manners.’
    ‘ I’d rather a man was true to himself than hide behind etiquette and manners.’
    ‘ But we can’t all behave that way. Say what we want, behave how we want.’
    ‘ Perhaps not, but perhaps we would be happier if we tried.’ Janey felt his challenge. He was accusing her of being someone she was not. Of trying to be the person she hoped the other staff, her mother, her father would love instead of just being herself. He saw his barb hit home as her eyes started to glisten with tears. He spoke the truth and he knew it would hurt her. He wanted to hurt her. He did not like being compared to the Brockenshaw men or any other “gentleman”.  He had seen them in town visiting their gentlemen clubs where they met with their whores while their wives sat at home producing babies year after year. He had seen them meet their mistresses and lead a double life, one with their wife and upholding the Victorian family values, the other steeped in betrayal and lies. Manners.